I headed out to New York in early June to do a little work. I flew out a couple of days early to hook up with my step brother Jordan and take a tour around Manhatten Island. Everything is there, it's truly the modern day Rome. I arived at LaGuardia in the late evening Saturday night and had a cab driver take me to Jordan's apartment in Bedford. Bedford used to be a slum about 5 years ago in Brooklyn. It's since been cleaned up, but I didn't know this. So when I showed up and Jordan wasn't home yet, at first I was a little nervous, but realized pretty soon that it was a nice neighborhood.
Metting up with Jordan
That night Jordan, Jordan's roommate, his roommate's girlfriend and I went out to a "bubble-tea" shop. Bubble-tea is some f#%$ed up tea. It was like your normal everyday garden variety tea, but at the bottom of it were these giant tapioca balls. They gave you a giant straw to drink out of, so you would be sipping away and then all of a sudden take a giant tapioca ball to the back of the throat. It was unique, and I liked it. Lot's of stuff in New York is ahead of it's time so we'll see if bubble-tea shops make their way out to Colorado any time soon. It was just an emerging trend when I got there.
Let the adventure begin
The next day, Jordan and I got up, showered and then hit up a local bagel shop up the road. New York bagels are big! We then headed into the subway system and shot over to manhatten. The subways in New York are the method of choice for transportation. They remind me of light rail in Colorado, but they are just running all the time so, unlike light rail, they are very practical. Jordan is a smart man and carried a bottle of hand sanitizer with him which I asked to mooch off of often. You feel really dirty after touching everything in the subway system.
Ground Zero
Our first stop on the trip around Manhatten was Ground Zero. I've wanted to see this since 9/11 two years ago. I was suspicious that seeing the site of the old World Trade Center would be more powerful than it was on T.V. and I always felt it was pretty powerful there to begin with. I was very correct about my theory. The mood around this testament to human loss is still somber 3 years later. It looks when you're there like half the size of Denver, probably 9 by 9 blocks. Everywhere you go around the perimiter people are gasping and saying "oh my god" under their breath. I was once again, glad to just be alive. I can't imagine what it would have been like that day.
Overlooking Jersey
It's a quick walk from the Trade Center down to the financial district. We walked down the esplinades and took a look at New Jersey and the Statue of Liberty. It was a really pretty park durring the day but I heard that it is an area that you don't want to be around at night. Apparently many people walking around at night are walking around with weapons of all different fashions.
Wall Street
When we arrived at the finacial district I lived out a lifelong childhood dream of sexually molesting the giant bronze Wall Street Bull. Just about every bank I've ever owed money, or gave me a loan with a high interest rate was within a couple of blocks, so it felt really good to give something back.
Chinatown
New York, like San Francisco, has many districts sectioned out by ethnicity. The two big ones are Chinatown and Little Italy. These districts really do have personality to them as well. Chinatown is a haven for cheap jewlery, suspicious seafood, and copyright enfringment. Every corner has someone standing on it selling pirated DVDs and CDs for extremely low prices. They even have good hack jobs on some of the movies that have just come out in the theaters. It's blatently against the law and very in your face. Each carton of pirated material has a nice little old lady standing behind it selling the products. I found that each one of these ladies had at least one other person waiting in the shadows keeping an eye out for the police. It was so strange I had to buy Xmen 2 and The Matrix Reloaded for the low price of $8, just to have something to show for it.
Little Italy
Little Italy is it's own animal as well. It's a bit more sparse than Chinatown and Jordan tells me that it was once much bigger, but that they have had to scale down some in recent years. The primary ware in Little Italy seems to be food and they certainly seem to be pushing every possible Italian stereotype on you as well. Every store owner talks like he's from Godfather or Goodfellas and there are Italian cops interacting with these shop owners in a manner that makes them look 'on the payroll'.
Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station was our next stop. It's the nexus of the transportation system in New York's Manhatten Island. It's got a pretty gothic architecture and is busy with people going this way and that. We saw many street perfomers here as well. We saw the guy who plays the drums on buckets and a good Michael Jackson impersonator.
Times Square
Next stop was Time Square. This place was everything I imagined and more. Something is always going on in front of you and behind you and to all sides. It's complete information overload. I imagine that these days it's more of a tourist attraction than the real center of media attention, but it certainly lives up to it's billing.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Jordan and I then headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in this shot the beholder is confused. Actually, there wasn't a piece of art that I didn't like in some fashion or another, which is really odd for me. I have no formal art training at all, but I usually wind up being one of it's biggest critics. I could really see how people in NYC would want to come to the Met to get away from the fast paced world outside.
Central Park
Another childhood dream is fullfilled here as I "frolic in Central Park". This park is MUCH larger than I originally thought it was going to be. Beautiful by day, dangerous by night, central park has a beautiful contrast of nature and a sprawling metropolice behind it. It's very well layed out and has a good mixture of fields, paths, rocks, ponds and structures.
The Plane Ride Home
After a long week of work, it was time to head home. It was foggy basically the whole time I was there, but I hope to return in the next few months with a little more time to spend checking out the city's nightlife and hang out with Jordan again.
